Brenda Shaughnessy

Totally brilliant, also hilarious & heartbreakingly necessary rn.

Reading & so into this book rn!

Turning Turning into my own Turning on in To my own self At last Turning out of the White cage turning out of the Lady cage Turning at last On a stem like a black fruit In my own season At last.

From ‘How To Carry Water’ (2020)
—Lucille Clifton

#poetry #poem #booksky

It’s worse than “Gaza is being starved and destroyed and no one cares.” It’s that hundreds of millions *do* care and are powerless to stop it. We need a world where that can never happen, where the masses actually have political power.

Andrea Gibson is still with us, every moment & forever, even when we’re not reading them. But to read Andrea Gibson is to make a new “every moment” a new forever a mix of new and old—forgetting time has any hold on us entirely. Thank you, always-poet.

Opera uses AI to give people with non-verbal disabilities a voice At an Omaha, Nebraska, festival this summer, new work explores the intersection of art, disability and technology, asking questions like "who has a voice?" and "who gets to be heard?" Senior arts corr...

Our opera, Sensorium Ex, on PBS Newshour: www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Omg the BEST news!

Our opera Sensorium Ex opens in 4 days, at the Sapp Field House in Omaha. In dress rehearsals now and it’s looking gorgeous. Paola Prestini’s music is divine.(commonsensesfestival.org)
(www.visionintoart.org/via-projects/sensorium-ex)

Sensorium Ex Trailer #2 FINAL (May 7 2025) This is "Sensorium Ex Trailer #2 FINAL (May 7 2025)" by Paola/National Sawdust/VIA on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

New trailer for the opera ✨ vimeo.com/1082191184/f...

Grace Paley forever. 🖤

I’m so moved! & it’s such a glorious anthology! ❤️💐✨

YES. This.

A Princeton undergrad saying what needs to be said.

Wow. Yes. Thank you for posting this.

An important thread:

Here are the links to said pod & playlist.

I yap with Aaron & James on @breakingformpod—we remember & wonder & lament & wander poetry together. Or if you need fuel for yr fight, listen to my Brenda’s Resistance Playlist—where Mitski & Cecile & St. Vincent & Janelle & We Are Ladyparts rule!
www.instagram.com/p/DHlMEypu5R...

My heart sank so fast.

Why hasn’t musk been arrested for anything? He breaks laws & NO ONE can come up w/ a charge? He stole govt $ & info, made himself co-prez, colonized the very skies. Meanwhile if a woman 8wks pregnant drives out of Idaho for an abortion, SHE’S a criminal. He has an army of fetii on ice! WTAF?!

Sometimes it feels like I’m going crazy, because there is something that is right in front of our faces, has been for years, and nobody of consequence ever says it:
Donald Trump works for Vladimir Putin.
How much more proof does anyone need? And what is anybody going to do about it?

Right with you. I got a zine stapler!

There’s something happening in this country.

What these nihilistic vandals are doing to dismantle science & medicine—generations of expertise & public service & life improving benefits—is cultural revolution level national self harm. No foreign foe could inflict such brutal damage & senseless suffering on US so fast & effectively & unresisted.

SHARE WIDELY.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

With mass deportations starting today across the country, it is vitally important - for both citizens and non-citizens - to know your rights.

You have the right to remain silent. Assert it. You have the right to a lawyer. Ask for one.

(1/3)

it’s bad and it’s gotten exponentially worse in the past 6 months. if you write anything involving deep research/old books/forgotten periodicals you’re probably noticing “wiki creep,” because it’s one of the few resources left standing. the internet as an archive is disappearing, has disappeared.

Megarich/technocrats know creative talent is the only irreducible human juice that $ can’t “make happen.” This frustrates them. Being unable to purchase, possess & control creativity enrages & embitters them. They’d gladly destroy art & any notion of artistic meaning, w their big dumb AI, jealous.

This poem is stunning! Congratulations Finola! ✨

What a literary treasure! “That’s me.” Crossed-out “fake” grass! Also admire how the narrative arc fits perfectly in the space.

Exactly. Fascism only tolerates fascist art (like AI.) Real art (human imagination, ideas) is a public condemnation & a direct threat.

And if not a single loved one reads a single word, buying books (from Books Are Magic, for example) still helps keep them in print & moving thru the world as real objects written by real writers for really important reasons, at a crucial moment.